Retired cigarette machine dispenses art

Retired cigarette machine dispenses handmade art

By Scott Beveridge

Staff Writer

Katie Roupe/Observer-Reporter

Lynne Kropinak is the owner of the Craft-O-Tron, a vending machine filled with local handmade crafts. The Craft-O-Tron is made out of a recycled cigarette machine and travels around the Pittsburgh area filled with craft goods for purchase.
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Katie Roupe/Observer-Reporter

Lynne Kropinak makes all kinds of crafts, including lampshades and jewelry. For these necklaces, Kropinak made the cats’ heads out of clay and used other recycled parts for the body.
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Photo courtesy of Craft-O-Tron

Assorted examples of the craft items that can be purchased from the traveling Pittsburgh Craft-O-Tron machine

Scott Beveridge / Observer-Reporter

One of Lynne Kropinak’s retrofitted vending machines, which is in semi-retirement.
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A Cecil Township craft artist says people have developed a healthy addiction to a vintage cigarette machine she retrofitted and rotates around the Pittsburgh area as an ambassador for local craft artists.

Lynne Kropinak has cleverly recycled a decades-old vending machine with hand pulls into an artsy device from which to dispense inexpensive, handmade crafts in boxes the same size as cigarette packs.

“People come in and stare at it for a while,” Kropinak said. “At first they don’t know what to make of it.”

The top of the machine that once advertised Marlboro or Pall Mall smokes has been replaced with a hand-cut paper design in the Art Deco style bearing the name Craft-O-Tron.

Kropinak borrowed the idea from the Art-o-mat® created by Clark Whittington, who in 1997 began using recycled cigarette vending machines to sell art and culture in Winston-Salem, N.C. The concept since has spread across the country, providing outlets for nearly 400 artists from 10 countries.

“I loved the idea and thought, ‘Why not do it with crafters in Pittsburgh?’” said Kropinak, a mother of six sons who also creates whimsical lamps from recycled items for a company she named Brought Back to Light.

“It’s sort of a miniature mechanical craft show that travels around like a craft ambassador,” she said.

She also uses the machine to promote the dates and locations of craft shows, such as Handmade Arcade, where she has been among more than 100 local crafters selling their wares at David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh.

Among the items sold in the Craft-O-Tron are crocheted pierogi, bracelets, earrings crafted from small plastic replicas of Heinz pickles and keychains decorated with severed Barbie doll arms and legs.

The Barbie keychain is the work of Nikki Telladictorian, who refers to herself as a “small arms dealer.”